upgrade my mums pc....

yantorsen · 2 Jan 2008 at 02:08

gazfocus said:
Not sure why you said the 8600GT is a waste of DirectX 10 hardware when the 3850 is DirectX 10 too

because the 8600 is too slow to make it worth running games in DX10 over DX9.

whilst the 3850 is just a better card anyway, regardless of what DX

Indy500 · 2 Jan 2008 at 02:13

yantorsen said:
because the 8600 is too slow to make it worth running games in DX10 over DX9.

whilst the 3850 is just a better card anyway, regardless of what DX

Hi Josh

Actually, you can't max it out on a 9550

at least not with AA turned on (or edge smoothing as Sims 2 calls it).

yantorsen · 2 Jan 2008 at 02:26

sr4470 said:
Hi Josh

Actually, you can't max it out on a 9550 at least not with AA turned on (or edge smoothing as Sims 2 calls it).

hi mate.

think you'll find I can, although the camera movement can be a little clunky, but it's smooth otherwise.

Indy500 · 2 Jan 2008 at 02:42

yantorsen said:
hi mate.

think you'll find I can, although the camera movement can be a little clunky, but it's smooth otherwise.

Last time I played it (which was with an XP2400, 512MB RAM and a Radeon 9600) it wasnt particularly smooth.

yantorsen · 2 Jan 2008 at 02:44

sr4470 said:
Last time I played it (which was with an XP2400, 512MB RAM and a Radeon 9600) it wasnt particularly smooth.

well i had an xp2600, although i doubt that would make much difference.

and was yours a 128mb 9600 or a 256mb version?

either way i wouldnt recomend a 9 series radeon to the OP there dead tech lol.

Indy500 · 2 Jan 2008 at 02:48

yantorsen said:
well i had an xp2600, although i doubt that would make much difference.

and was yours a 128mb 9600 or a 256mb version?

either way i wouldnt recomend a 9 series radeon to the OP there dead tech lol.

128MB...Sims 2 isn't RAM hungry last time I checked. Having hardware T&L and a good fillrate help as far as graphics go.

tomanders91 · 2 Jan 2008 at 13:33

i ran it at medium on a p4 2.6, 512mb of 2100 ram and a geforce 4 mx!

But to the op, get a cheap AM2 motherboard, £25 crucial 4200 ram, a X2 4000 or 4200 and an x1950pro, if you can stretch it a bit go for a 3850pro for future games.

synixx · 2 Jan 2008 at 15:07

i think the b-grade section is great.

**B Grade** MSI K9N Neo-F nForce 550 (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard - £18.79
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BG-124-MS&groupid=595&catid=596&subcat=689

GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit - £28.19
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-058-GL&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=813

**B Grade** Leadtek GeForce 7600 GT 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/DVI - £45.83
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BG-028-LT

maybe a different graphics card, i bought a x1950gt for £55 a week ago, i posted some benchmarks results on this tread. http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17821807

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4000+ 2.10GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail - £44.64
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-202-AM

in total that comes to £147.13 including delivery and vat.

caithomas44 · 2 Jan 2008 at 15:18

please remember people he is talking about sims 2 not the first sims, sims 2 still runs a bit jerky on a 1950xt on full settings, i know this as my last system was a 4400am2, 2gb pc3200 and xt1950xtx which my sister used for the sims 2.

got for the ATI 3000 series card over the nvidia any day

tomanders91 · 2 Jan 2008 at 16:53

ignore

Munky1080 · 2 Jan 2008 at 19:18

I thought I'd chip in my two pence here. My wife became obsessed with Sims 2 when we had a P4 3.0Ghz (prescott) with 512MB ram (256MG pc3200 the other 256MB was pc2700) and an ATI x700 pro 256MB card. It indeed was clunky. When I upgraded to the x1950 pro, it went much faster and when I upgraded to 1GB ram and ran it in dual channel it was much better. I recommend an e2140/60/80, 2GB ram, and at least an x1950 pro....anything less and it won't run maxxed out.

Also, if you mom never saw Sims 2 in a decent resolution and with the options all on high, it'll impress her to no end when she first fires the game up after the upgrade.

Meatball · 2 Jan 2008 at 20:27

Can I just say that The Sims 2 is more graphically demanding then people think. On community lots my x850xt pe really struggled. Also make sure the CPU is a good one, TS2 is very CPU hungry

.

Confused · 2 Jan 2008 at 20:57

Yeah The Sims 2 can be very strenuous on systems!

There's often lots of details going on all at once, so a good processor, plenty of RAM and a half-decent modern graphics card will be required to play on high quality settings, and still be able to pan around well.

yantorsen · 4 Jan 2008 at 11:58

caithomas44 said:
please remember people he is talking about sims 2 not the first sims, sims 2 still runs a bit jerky on a 1950xt on full settings, i know this as my last system was a 4400am2, 2gb pc3200 and xt1950xtx which my sister used for the sims 2.

got for the ATI 3000 series card over the nvidia any day

yeah i know were talking sims2, I could play it fine on my athlon 2600xp, 512mb ddr ram, and an agp radeon 9550.

I had max setttings that you could access from the sims options menu, and that includes "edge smoothing" or whatever the sims calls it.

admittadly the camera panning wasn't too smooth, and if you zoomed out it got even worse.

and when i say it ran smooth I dont mean 60fps, and i mean it was playable and smooth enough, ie. 20-30 fps. (not that i frap tested it mind)